The First Fall From Grace, Sperm/Egg and Conception, Part Two — Divinity “Contracted Himself”: “A Line Like a Thin Pipe Extended from Infinity to Create the Worlds.”

The Thin Pipe From Infinity

Despite his placing the first separation at birth, Shoham (1990) does see that some elements of the mythic projection need to be interpreted farther back in time, into the intrauterine state. He writes,

Before birth, there is the process of pregnancy and the formation of the human fetus to be considered. This, we claim, is depicted mytho-empirically by the Kabbalist dynamic of Tzimtzum (contraction). Rabbi Haim Vital, the foremost disciple of Rabbi Isaac Luria and chief exponent of Lurianic Kabbala, describes the process of Tzimtzum:

[Emanating Divinity] contracted Himself, a space round all around was formed. . . . After this contraction, a space was [thus] formed for emanant creatures to be created . . . and a line like a thin pipe extended from Infinity to create the worlds. . . . [T]he pipe line created a round form . . . linked to the emanator (Infinity) by the pipe line only . . . and the line is thin so that it emanates light [livelihood] by measure and ration as needed by the emanant.

This would seem to be a plastic mytho-empirical depiction of the formation of the fetus within the round womb, fed by the umbilical cord stemming from an unknown emanator (to the fetus) in the away and beyond, perceived by the nascent awareness of the fetus and later projected onto mythology as Infinity. (1990, pp. 35-36)

But we see indications going back still farther, to the time surrounding conception, in what Shoham presents here. The earliest events he cites are the formation of the fetus in the womb through the “thin pipe extended from Infinity to create the worlds.” He claims this describes the situation of the fetus in the womb, being fed by the umbilical cord. However, with a slightly altered viewpoint on his depiction, his earliest events take on the characteristics of the earliest events, viz., surrounding conception. This may be either an additional meaning to the myth or the more accurate meaning of the myth, however you choose to consider it (the multilevel quality of myths is well established).

At any rate, consider: In the process of contraction, Tzimtzum, there is this space in which things can be created. I have no quarrel with Shoham that the space described represents the womb. But there is this thin pipe from Infinity extended, the pipeline created around form, linked to the emanator by the pipeline only. Considering the near-universal relation of Infinity to the male (as contrasted with the similarly universal analogues of maternal to the manifest or temporal), I believe a masculine interpretation is warranted. You thus have a masculine Emanator Divinity contracting and being linked to this round place by a thin pipeline.

Then, right in the beginning, Divinity contracted himself. There’s this round form linked to the emanator by the pipeline only. The line is thin so it emanates light, livelihood, measure, and ration as needed by the emanant; and it does so into the round place. A more accurate depiction of sexual intercourse and ejaculation from the viewpoint of the cellular would be hard to find.

There’s a pipeline that’s connected to “Himself” through which He emanates things out into the universe and creates them. According to the tradition, the line emanates light. Are these not the sperm coming out? The energetic sperm, biologically speaking, can be related to sparks of joy or sparks of life—as they have been described experientially.

Yet Shoham writes that this would seem to be a plastic mytho-empirical depiction of the formation of the fetus within the round womb during gestation. From this alternate perspective, however, the thin pipeline is not the umbilical cord. It emanates light from “Himself,” the Father-God—who in reality is the father. Another way of saying: the father ejaculates sperm into the womb. Is not the inside of the penis, taking the sperm’s perspective of course, also to be likened to a thin pipeline?

Shoham writes “fed by the umbilical cord stemming from an unknown emanator.” I believe this is incorrect. This makes the “contraction” be the actual pregnancy; whereas the meaning of contraction is more accurately fitted to the processes, physically, of ejaculation on the part of the father and, spiritually, on the part of the newly created individual going from the Greater Reality into form.

Divinity “Contracted Himself”

This is the actual coming into form of sperm and egg from undifferentiated reality and infinite potentiality; experientially, the self has “contracted.”

It is also the first “split”—the first creation of something Other than One-Self.

So what I’m proposing about the experiences surrounding conception, I contend, is a better analogue to the mythological Kabbalist depiction of Tzimtzum, contraction, and the thin pipe from Infinity, than is Shoham’s interpretation of it as the umbilical cord and nourishment from the mother.

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About sillymickel

Activist, psychotherapist, pre- and perinatal psychologist, author, and environmentalist. I seek to inspire others to our deeper, more natural consciousness, to a primal, more delightful spirituality, and to taking up the cause of saving life on this planet, as motivated by love.